VOORHEESVILLE — After improving their play over the past few games, the Voorheesville girls’ soccer team took a couple of steps backward in Monday’s game against Ravena.

The Lady Blackbirds lost to the Indians, 4-0, in a game that broke open in the second half.
"The players just go on the field," said Voorheesville Coach Joe Santos. "They don’t understand or forget to be somewhere. This is not good. We had played well the last few games. We’ve been in the ball games. We played well Saturday morning."

The Blackbirds on Saturday lost 1-0 to Holy Names, a team that is undefeated in the Colonial Council.
"I don’t understand," Santos said. "I don’t know. They got to be somewhere on the field and they just drift. They forget about concepts and what it is they need to do."

On Monday, Voorheesville trailed just 1-0 at halftime, though the Blackbirds were badly beaten to 50-50 balls and Ravena had several opportunities to score.

Ashley Wilson scored the goal for the Indians in the first half. Amanda White had the assist on the tally.

Ravena continued to add pressure to the Blackbirds in the second half and had the ball at its end of the field for most of the 40 minutes.

Lauren Howley added to the Indians’ lead when she scored with 25:19 left in the game. She lofted a shot over Voorheesville goalie Brittany Holcomb. Jackie Levie assisted on the goal.

Kelly McGuire put the game away for the Indians with two goals.

Her first tally came on a penalty kick after she was fouled in the penalty box near the goal.

McGuire’s second score came unassisted with 3:45 left in the game.

"We’ve regressed"
"We, just for whatever reason, don’t seem to grasp it when marking people," Santos said. "They don’t move to the ball or, when they do, they fly right by the player and let people go. We are aggressive when we shouldn’t be and, when we need to be, we are not. Two of the goals we gave up, we overran the plays."

The Blackbirds did not have many scoring opportunities. Forward Jess Giglio had the ball a couple of times deep in the Ravena end of the field but a stout Indians’ defense stopped her from getting a shot off.

Also the Blackbirds’ leading scorer, Hayley George, was contained and spent time on the bench, resting an injury.

The Birds got solid play from Holcomb in goal and Lindsey Dembo on defense.
"I told them that we’ve regressed," Santos said. "We played a wonderful game on Saturday. I couldn’t ask for anything more from them than what they performed. Today we regressed."

The Birds at times had trouble getting the ball out of their own end of the field.
"On goal kicks at our own end, we got green shirts in front of us," Santos said. "We can’t stand in front of them and we allow them to take the ball without a fight."

The road gets more difficult for the Blackbirds. They had to play Schalmont on Wednesday. They lost to the Sabers, 9-0, earlier in the season.

The Blackbirds are 2-7-1 this season. They have wins over Cobleskill and Cohoes this season.

On Friday, Voorheesville hosts Cobleskill and travels to Cohoes next Tuesday.
"Hopefully, in Wednesday’s game, we improve against Schalmont," Santos said after Monday’s game. "We went there and it was worse than this. There is no other magical formula. They have to know where they need to be and, from there, try to play."